I got this game home, briefly looked through the instructions and then started looking through the pieces in the box.Right away, it was apparent that I was missing a piece. The panda itself was missing! This is something that you need to play the game. This seemed like such an oversight by the company that I found myself double checking, triple checking and finally quadruple checking everything to make sure that it hadn't become dislodged and was just somewhere that I couldn't see.Unfortunately, the little guy was nowhere to be found. Looking through the forums of boardgamegeek, I noticed that this was a problem that other people had when they opened up their game (not just the panda, other game pieces as well).Naturally, I returned the game for an exchange. Once I do get the new game, I'll make sure to count every single game piece to make sure that they are all there. I suggest anyone that buys this does the same.I'll amend my review once I can actually play the game.********************************************************************************************************************************************************As promised, I'm amending my review. I returned the game for an exchange through Amazon. Kudos to Amazon here, they shipped it overnight.This one had all of the game pieces, I counted each and every one just to make sure.Now onto the game. I've only played this game with two players with the maximum number being 4. The playing time is around 45 minutes, but sometimes games go faster.The story of this game is simple; the Chinese Emperor gifts the Japanese Emperor a Giant Panda to celebrate their new alliance.At the start of the game each person is given three objective cards, one from each category (gardener, land plot, and panda). Aptly named, these objective cards have a point value associated with them. When the objectives are met, the player can turn over the card to score the points. In a two player game the person with nine objective cards scored signals the end of the game. In a three player game this is eight cards, in a four player game it's seven. You can only have 5 objective cards in your hand at one time.On your turn you get two standard actions which cannot be the same. You can either:1. Place a Land Plot tile (there are three colors - green, yellow and pink)2. Place an Irrigation Channel3. Move the gardener (grows bamboo on any irrigated land plot)4. Move the Panda (eats one bamboo)5. Draw an objective cardOn every turn after the first, the player rolls the weather die. Results can be:1. Choose an extra action2. Choose to place a bamboo piece on any land plot3. Can choose two of the same actions4. Move the panda5. Add an improvement to a land plot that doesn't have any bamboo6. ? - this just means that you get to choose any of the above (most of the time three actions are chosen)Here are some sample objectives:1. The panda has to eat two segments of green bamboo. This is worth three points.2. The gardener plants two sections of pink bamboo three segments high. This is worth six points.3. Match up two green irrigated land plot tiles and two irrigated pink land plot tiles next to each other. That's worth 4 points.I've glossed over some of the nuances of the rules, but I'll let you discover that during gameplay.Naturally, the one with the most points at the end of the game wins.This is a fun, short game. The rules are easy to understand, the game play comical, and all of the pieces are wonderfully designed (although the objective cards do seem a little fragile). For those that are looking for a non-violent board game, this is going to be up your alley.For recommended age, I think that there is a conflicting misprint. On the box it says eight and over, in the instruction manual it says thirteen and over. Although there are a few things to keep track of during the game, I don't think that it requires a player to be thirteen. Much younger kids could (and probably do) play this game.Overall, I found that gameplay was mostly balanced; three out of the four games that we played the total score wasn't off by that much. On the last game, I did notice that if a player was unlucky and drew too many low scoring objective cards there was no way to recover from that.I wonder if one of the weather die rolls should allow you to discard a card back into the draw pile - randomly of course. If you do incorporate that rule, you'd probably want to limit the number of discards that you can do.If this kind of game is your style, then I definitely recommend picking it up.